The Amish Suitor

Folding her arms in front of her, she gave him a cool smile. “That’s not what I was checking. If you want, I can teach you to read lips.”

“What?”

She touched her lips and then raised and lowered her fingers against her thumb as if they were a duck’s bill. “Talk. I can help you understand what people are saying by watching them talk.”

* * *

When he realized what Miriam was doing, Eli was stunned. A nurse at the hospital where he’d woken after the wall’s collapse had suggested that, once he was healed, he should learn to read lips. He’d pushed that advice aside, because he didn’t have time with the obligations of his brother’s farm and his brother’s son. Kyle had been a distraught toddler, not understanding why his beloved parents had disappeared.

During the past four years he and his nephew had created a unique language together. Mostly Kyle had taught it to him, helping him decipher the meaning and context of the few words he could capture.

“How do you know about lipreading?” he asked.

“My grossmammi.” She tapped one ear, then the other. “...hearing...as she grew older. We...together. We practiced together.”

Kyle came outside and rushed to them when Miriam gestured. He wore a milk mustache, and chocolate pudding dotted his chin.

When she bent to speak to him, too low and too fast for Eli to hear, the little boy nodded and took the tissue she handed him. She motioned toward Eli as she straightened.

Wiping his mouth and chin, Kyle faced him. Learn to read talking. What’s that? The puzzled boy looked from Miriam to him at the same time he made the rudimentary signs he used to help Eli understand others.

“I can help.” She put her hands on Kyle’s shoulders. “Kyle...grows up. Who will...you then?”

Who would help him when Kyle wasn’t nearby? He was sure that was what she’d asked. It was a question he’d posed to himself. More and more often as Kyle reached the age to start attending school.

“How does it work?” he asked.

“You watch my lips. We start with simple words. It is how my grossmammi... I learned.”

Watch her lips? Simple? He would gladly have spent days watching her lips. His gaze was drawn to those rose-colored curves too often. Now she was giving him the perfect excuse to stare at them...

He shook his head.

“You...no help?” she asked, and he realized she’d confused his refuting of his own thoughts as an answer to her kind offer.

Before he could answer, Kyle pulled on his sleeve and motioned, Help you. Her help you.

As his nephew pointed at Miriam and then at Eli, Kyle’s signals couldn’t have been clearer. Kyle wanted Eli to agree to the lessons.

Not for the first time, Eli thought about the burden he’d placed on Kyle. Though Eli was scrupulous in making time for Kyle to be a kind,sometimes, like when they went to a store, he found himself needing the little boy to confirm a total when he was checking out or to explain where to find something on the shelves. If he didn’t agree to Miriam’s help, he was condemning his nephew to a lifetime of having to help him.

That wouldn’t have been what his brother would have wanted. Milan and his wife, Shirley, had expected their son to play with friends and go to school and learn to assume responsibility for the family’s farm. The farm had been sold so he and Kyle could start over by Harmony Creek, but he could ensure his nephew had the chance to be a kid. Was Miriam the way God was answering his prayer for help? If so, he needed to agree.

“All right,” he said. “You can try to teach me to read lips.”

She gave him a nod and a gentle smile, not the superior one he’d worried she’d flash at him. “...next Monday. You and Kyle—” she pointed at his nephew and at him, matching Kyle’s motions “—supper. After we eat...”

“All right.”

“Tell me.”

For a second he was baffled, and then he realized she wanted him to repeat what she’d said so she could be certain he’d grasped the meaning of her words. His confusion became surprise. Why hadn’t he considered such repetition was an easy way to avoid mistakes?

“You invited Kyle and me to supper,” he said. “After the meal, you’ll start teaching me to read lips.”

“Gut,” she said as his nephew held his fingers in an okay sign. Satisfaction sparkled in her cat-green eyes as if she’d enjoyed a bowl of cream. “Be prepare...work.”

He hoped he wasn’t going to prove to be an utter failure as he’d been with helping his brother make sure the wall was safe. Miriam seemed so confident she could teach him. He didn’t want to disappoint her when she was going out of her way to help him.

Kyle threw his arms around Miriam and gave her a big hug. He grinned, and Eli realized how eager the kind was to let someone else help Eli fill in the blanks.

“You’ll have a gut time at school, ain’t so, buddy?” Eli asked, trying to cover his trepidation at losing Kyle’s help.

Kyle tensed. No go. Go later.

Eli knelt in front of his nephew. “You’ll be fine. You’re going to enjoy school.”

When Miriam nodded and said something, Kyle looked dubious.

The little boy shook his head. Stay together. Eli and Kyle. No go now.

“You’ll be fine,” he repeated. “The day will go so quickly you won’t realize it because you’re having fun with learning and your new friends.”

Kyle touched one ear, then the other.

It took every sinew of strength Eli had not to flinch. That was a signal he hadn’t seen the little boy make often, but he knew what it meant. Kyle was scared something bad would happen, as it had to Eli and his parents.

“It’ll be okay. Miriam will be watching over you so you don’t have to worry about getting hurt, ain’t so?”

He raised his eyes toward her, expecting her to confirm his words. Instead, Miriam eased out of the little boy’s embrace, her smile gone. She said something, but Eli didn’t get a single word. She rushed away, vanishing into the barn where she lived with her brother.

What had he said wrong? One minute she’d been working to convince Kyle that going to school was something he wanted to do. The next she was fleeing as if a rabid fox nipped at her heels. Was it the thought of being with the scholars? Again, Eli found himself wondering why anyone who was so uneasy around kinder was going to be the settlement’s teacher.

He didn’t have time to figure it out. He needed to calm his nephew. “Looks like we’re both going to start school next week,” Eli said, patting him on the back.

Kyle gave him a distracted nod and kept staring at the door Miriam had used. Why was he acting as oddly as she had?

Had what Miriam said upset the little boy?

“What did she say as she was leaving?” he asked as he tucked the page with the school drawing into his pocket. “Did you hear what she said?”

He nodded.

“What was it?”

The little boy started to open his mouth, then clamped it closed. Shaking his head, he ran to the buggy and climbed in.

Eli sighed. Kyle had heard something he didn’t want to repeat. It’d happened a few times before, and Eli had discovered how useless it was to badger the little boy again to help him understand. Kyle always found a way to avoid answering him.